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5 Chatbot Mistakes To Avoid When Creating A Bot| By |Murray Newlands

Getting to the stage where your chatbot is ready to be launched to the world is very exciting. That said, if your chatbot has not gone through the right testing stages, it might not get the attention you originally intended. I have learned from my chatbot tool company Chattypeople that people make the same mistakes all the time and want to help you avoid them.

Although chatbot platforms allow companies to make bots powered by artificial intelligence in just a matter of minutes, mistakes are still made, like not giving the chatbot a unique name or forgetting to tell customers they are speaking to a chatbot and not a human.

Everything needs to be taken into consideration, as well as double and triple checked before being launched. To help improve your odds for success, I’ve put together a list of 5 common mistakes you should avoid making at all costs when creating a chatbot for your company.

1- Not Creating a Clear Bot Strategy and Website

Chatbot tools can help you create a bot, but it cannot put together your bot strategy. A clear bot strategy is the first and most important factor to ensure chatbot success. With a clear set of goals, you will be able to reach the right audience, thus providing them with the correct information that will eventually drive your bottom line.

Before creating your chatbot, you need to ask yourself:

What is the aim of my chatbot?

What do I need my chatbot to achieve?

What will be my chatbot’s key functionalities?

How is my chatbot going to help my audience?

To make sure your bot maintains a level of individuality from others, you will also need to create a dedicated website landing page. This will introduce your chatbot to your audience and demonstrate how it can help them. Like you would with a product description, make sure your bot’s functionalities are as clear as possible when communicating them to your customers. As well as telling your audience what your chatbot is capable of, its website page should be Search Engine Optimized (SEOd), making it more discoverable to new and existing customers.

Finally, when creating your chatbot strategy, make sure you do not go too broad. Chatbots are more efficient when they can undertake one or two tasks perfectly, rather than performing multiple tasks inefficiently. Build your first chatbot to represent a single campaign or with a focus on one specific product or service.

2- Not Undertaking the Appropriate Testing Before Launching It

It is hard to launch a product that is 100% perfect the first time around. When you first launch your chatbot, be prepared to immediately fix any issues it may have. The first launch of your chatbot will be the perfect opportunity for you to leverage existing customers to give you feedback.

Your customers will feel valued, as they will be given the opportunity to be part of your community and brand, and you will gather priceless insights and data from them. If you are a new company without someone test your bot on, ask your team members, people you know in your industry, and even friends.

Before launching your first chatbot, be sure to:

Research your chatbot’s audience

Test your chatbot multiple times

Gather feedback from your team

Launch it to external feedback groups

Be prepared to make the appropriate changes to fix any bugs

3- Making Your Bot Too Pushy

Conversational chatbots are a very personal way of reaching your target audience. After all, your chatbot will be communicating with your customers in the same way they normally do with their friends and family. Because of the nature of these conversational platforms, it is essential you do not come across pushy.

Aside from the fact that you may lose customers by spamming them with your products, services, and promotions, users could report you to Facebook. If multiple customers report you, Facebook could ban you from using the Messenger platform altogether.

Chatbot tools allows you to create a customer support chatbot that works seamlessly with Facebook Messenger and comments, as well as recognizes your keywords and phrases. This means it is able to push the right promotions, at the right time, on demand, without spamming your consumers.

4- Not Listing Your Chatbot in Bot Directories

Although your chatbot’s own website landing page will help with discoverability from an SEO point of view, it will not allow you to reach your full audience potential. A free and effective tool to make your chatbot known by the masses is to use bot directories.

There are numerous bot directories now available, some of which include:

5- Not Using Your Existing Customers As a Promotional Tool

Existing customers are extremely important from a marketing point of view when it comes to launching your new chatbot. They’re the perfect group of people to:

Give you feedback

Tell people about your brand and new chatbot services

Share and promote your bot through social media and various other platforms

To fully leverage your existing customers to promote your bot, monitor their usage through the tools dashboard and incorporate a variety of ways in which they can share your bot with potentially new users.

Finally…

Messaging platforms are the way of the future, and by leveraging them in your marketing strategy, you could reach a nearly endless audience on a much more personal level.